


Quiet Things

by pomegrenadier



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Angst, Dark Ezra Bridger, Gen, Introspection, The Dark Side of the Force, The Force, not really an AU but probably not quite canon compliant either
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 09:01:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10716303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pomegrenadier/pseuds/pomegrenadier
Summary: Ezra learns how to fall.





	Quiet Things

**Author's Note:**

> Kind of an alternate reading of SWR Season 2, starting from the midseason finale and continuing to the very end of Twilight of the Apprentice. I really do wish that Ezra's fall had been given more screentime, more development, more . . . permanency. So this is my take on his thought processes leading up to his decision to use the holocron.

**o.O.o**

They explain what they did and why. Ezra listens, and distantly, he knows that he has to make a choice. To be Jedi, to embody everything Kanan has ever taught him—be quiet, be focused, be disciplined, don't let your personal feelings get in the way, let go, _let go_ —or to be Ezra the pickpocket, Ezra the street rat, Ezra the orphan with hope like shrapnel tearing at his insides and rage about to boil over.

They lied to him. They have lied to him every single day by their silence, and his parents might be _alive_.

Ezra takes a breath and lets it out. He'll—he'll deal with it later. He'll be angry later. Right now he has to follow his vision as fast as possible, and to do that, he needs to not be at odds with Kanan and Hera. He needs to be Jedi, for just a little longer.

Just a little longer.

**o.O.o**

They're dead.

Ezra does not scream or cry or hurl accusations. He is quiet. He buries the grief and the rage and does the job in front of him. He helps the man who made it out while his parents died. Helps the Alderaanian princess. Returns to the Ghost. Does not talk to Kanan about what happened. Does not talk to anyone about what happened. He buries it all, because if he says anything, Kanan will be disappointed in him for failing to let go. Hera's sympathy will only last as long as it's convenient for her, for the Rebellion. The others . . . When have they ever cared, really cared?

Would his parents have let him cry on their shoulders like a child if it had been the other way around?

He misses them. He misses them so much.

**o.O.o**

Months later, on Malachor, Kanan and Ahsoka leave him behind in a dark hole to chase an Inquisitor, and Maul tells him to embrace his rage.

Ezra throws himself headlong into the seething, silent fire at his core, throws himself across the chasm, and it feels like flight and freedom. It feels like he's wanted this forever.

Maul catches him, the way Kanan caught him when he fell from the Ghost during that first disastrous lesson. Catches him, and does not chastise him for falling, and Ezra thinks, _I trust you_.

**o.O.o**

Wrongwrongwrong, always wrong, he's always always _wrong_ when he makes a choice, Kanan is blind and Ahsoka is dead and he has to look Rex in the eye and tell him that she's _gone gone gone and it's all my fault—_

In his cabin that night, Ezra clutches the holocron, and for the first time since he was orphaned all over again, he lets himself fall apart, lets himself feel _everything_ : the guilt and shame and grief and horror and most of all the helpless miserable _rage_ building and igniting like a black star going nova, howling fury fury fury in the dark—

He wants to never have to tell someone that he failed, that someone they loved died because of him, ever again. He wants to be strong enough to protect the people he cares about. He wants Malachor to have been worth it. He wants a secret that is his, a choice that might be wrong and might let him protect someone, _save_ someone, after all the times the Light has failed him—he _wants_ —

The holocron opens, pulsing red like a heart in his hands.

**o.O.o**


End file.
